How to Write an SDK Quickstart Developers Finish

Pick one language on the first screen. Link the others. A README that opens with a matrix of package managers asks them to choose before they have a reason to care.

Every command should be a fence they can copy. Prose around the command is how a flag gets lost.

Show the variable name and a placeholder, and say where the real key is copied from. A snippet with a live key will be pasted into GitHub by the first evaluator.

If the sample needs Docker, say so before the first command, including the memory the compose file expects.

Tell them what a good run prints. Without that, a warning, a stack, and a partial JSON blob all look like success. Then they build on a broken login.

When it fails, the error code should match a heading in the same README. Do not send them to a docs site with a different outline.

The drop-off is the command that exits. Capture it there. A feedback link at the bottom of the README is where patient people go, and patient people are not the majority.

Rewrite the step that shows up most often in the inbox that week. A quickstart you do not edit is a brochure.